>>> -- are the images and lyrics of the opening sequence prophetic? [...]
>>Can't tell you exactly... some of it is, some of it isn't.
>
>Actually, I was referring to the climax of RGU itself -- but
>nevermind; if I really want to know, I'll go find an epguide.

Oh... well, I probably shouldn't tell you that either.

>> worked out from context - after all, you don't see Anthy anywhere, do you?
>
>That could mean many things. Since Saionji is looking for the Rose
>Bride, either (a) she's not dead, (b) he doesn't *know* she's dead, or
>(c) the office has passed to a new holder.

He's not looking for the Rose Bride, he's looking for Anthy. He doesn't give a flying fish if she's the Rose Bride anymore or not.

>Maybe she vanished into whatever pocket dimension the sword hides in,
>in a freak accident during its, err, reinsertion. (How is *that*
>accomplished, I wonder? No sniggers, please.)

They don't show it more than once or twice, but the sword just disappears when it's not needed anymore - breaks up into yellow sparks and vanishes. (Presumably they all do that. In the next story arc after Software Sculptors stopped, it's shown that apparently everybody has a spirit sword.)

Anyway, as far as Utena knows as of Wounded Rose, Anthy is still trapped in the place where Utena came from, though she's not sure entirely where that is in relation to where she is now. So the imagery involving the two of them being pulled apart is accurate for our purposes.

>Hmmm... wasn't it the Dantovasku who Redneck created in his UF
>section?

No. There's an alien race called the Santovasku, which are from Johji Manabe's Outlanders, kicking around...

>>No increases in longevity?
>>John Gill is pitching in the major leagues and batting .339 at the age of fifty-eight.
>
>(Phil tilts his, clears his throat, and displays his vast, vast - vast
>- knowledge of professional sports.) That's somehow unusual?

It's rare for a professional baseball player to be able to pitch successfully at the major-league level at the age of thirty-eight, let alone fifty-eight. Nolan Ryan was a legend of durability for making it to forty.

>>>[...] (as a reader of serious SF) it doesn't ring true to me
>>UF isn't serious SF. Its world is a future that I would
>>like to live in - and that means it's just like today [...]
>
>(Phil grinds his eyebrows, gnashes his forehead, and thinks ambivalent
>thoughts about his preferences in authorial style.)

Well, hey, it's not like you had to pay for it or anything. If it bugs you that much, the elevator's that way...

>I'm just going to
>go off and construct a convoluted conspiracy of epicyles to explain
>the apparent cultural stagnation of the WDF-dominated galaxy, then.

That's fine if you have to, so long as you don't end up representing it as The True and Complete History of Why This Is Like This. 'Cause, not to put too fine a point on it, it ain't unless I made it up, and sometimes not even then. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/